Hear is some wisdom on politics by me, Art Earthmann.(Click on image to see an enlarged view.)

Cartoons / Trillionomics

My e-mails to President Obama

Should the current US Top Tax Rate of 35%...be raised back up to 90%... to help provide for Single-Pay Universal Medicare, Social Security solvency, and free education through to a Ph.D degree, etc., like they have in Norway?

To those of you who have entered this website of mine through the alternate door of: PulitzerPost.com/ ... welcome. You are also invited to visit my main Blog of twelve blogs at: ArtEarthmann.blogspot.com. You too can write President Obama at: Whitehouse.gov/contact/ ... Please push for Medicare Part "E" ("Everybody who wants to choose it can inexpensively acquire it".)

Attention: President OBAMA and Vice President BIDEN, Sirs:
October 15, 2009

In ISRAEL, the straight and narrow path, and road map to peace should include a long overdue visualization of what the actual ultimate real goal is. The decades long term "road map" suggests an actual map. Well, here is my map which I call "THE UNITED 3 STATES OF ISRAEL". In it, I simply redefine the West Bank as "EAST PALESTINE", and the Gaza Strip as "WEST PALESTINE".

I am convinced that if President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestine, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel would adopt such a map-- that the ultimate goal of a permanent peace treaty and establishment of the independent states of Palestine and Israel would more quickly be realized.

Similar to North and South Carolina in the United States, "East and West Palestine" will eventually secede hopefully peacefully from the State of Israel. Granted, the secession of South Carolina started the Civil War in the United States resulting in over 600,000 deaths. And the continual attempted secession of the "States of East and West Palestine" from the mother state of Israel has resulted in the deaths of thousands and is, in effect, a civil war of independence.

But, a first step must be one of definition. Given enough time and usage, eventually the leaders and inhabitants would become so used to the terms "East and West Palestine" that their future secession and formally adopted nomenclature would become adequately palatable, palpable and real. (To see my illustration/cartoon of this brilliant concept, please visit my Blog or Website listed below.)

In combat, it’s best to find out the physical size and strength of the enemy before mounting an attack. So it is with economic warfare. Our National Debt is now over 10.6 trillion dollars, and our National Deficit is over 1.3 trillion dollars. The amount of our recent Stimulus Bill totaled 787 billion dollars, so add that amount also.

Just how big is this hole of debt? If we were to dig a hole deep enough to hold a trillion dollars worth of a single stack of tightly packed five dollars bills, it would have to be around 12,620 miles deep! This would be more than the diameter of our planet Earth, plus twice the diameter of our moon combined!

But our National Debt is more than 10.6 trillion dollars, and so this amount would have to be a stack of fifty dollar bills rather than five dollar bills because the National Debt is around ten times more than the National Deficit.

Perhaps, if our Representatives in Washington would better appreciate the magnitude of how immense one to ten trillion dollars is, they might study related legislation much more judiciously before voting “yea” or “nay”. Too often, they defer too much of this ponderous research to their loyal, but relatively naive, aides.

GOP (The Grand Old Party, or, Republican Party) legislation has practically all gone towards helping almost entirely the upper-class: the millionaires, the billionaires, and the big corporations.

Our nation’s top Progressive Talk-Radio host is without question ThomHARTMANN.com, [KTLK LA CA USA (1150 AM) 9-12 M-F, and you can visit over 400,000 links of Thom on the World Wide Web by googling ... Thom Hartmann... There you will also find over 2,000 video sites and prompt daily podcasts of Thom educating our so poorly informed masses.]

Thom has challenged his 8 million radio listeners for the past two years to prove otherwise about the GOP. So far, not one listener has come forward with one bill originating from a republican during the past ten years in the House of Representatives or US Senate that would have really benefited the working/middle-class!

FAIRNESS DOCTRINE: Presently, the number of conservative TALK RADIO stations in the US is around 500; the number of progressive stations is only around 100. Leveling this playing field should be the number one priority to provide for a firm educational foundation to enable another 46 year span of uninterrupted progressive majorities in both Houses of Congress and the presidency. In Salt Lake City, Utah, there is not one progressive Talk Radio station! They are all conservative stations. No wonder the independents vote republican so often in Utah.

I am convinced that if these good people heard the progressive voices of, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, FDR. and even Teddy Roosevelt, Ike Eisenhower, and George Romney (who also liked the word “progressive”)... yes, even many more of these good souls would enthusiastically respond to those progressive truths that would radiate forth! (Just think, feel, and extrapolate: even Jesus Christ, and the first Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., were truly progressives"! "For behold, it came to pass that Jesus said, 'Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing'." This helps prove that Jesus was a "leftist, liberal, progressive... because it was His left hand that was doing the doing!)

A great place to begin to improve media fairness would be for some members of Congress to submit a bill reinstating the Sherman Antitrust Act which passed the Senate 51-1 and the House 242-0 in 1890 with President Benjamin Harrison signing it into law. It was repealed in 1975 and thereby opened the floodgate of monopolistic corporate feeding frenzies since then. Of course, republican free-market lassiz-faire anti-regulation economists like Alan Greenspan, and John Stockman, rejoiced.

Corporate billionaire bullies like Bill Gates of Microsoft, and the monopolistic media mogul Rupert Murdoch of New York, have way too much propagandistic power.

The FCC should be forced to "recut the cake" of the airways so that this American civilization can have the eclectic truths of all angles be made readily available to We The People! In Truth We Trust!

In fact, lets have a revolution: have enlightened progressives take over the Department of Education, and then have the Department of Education take over the Federal Communications Commission!

Why is there so little Civics and History taught in our High Schools and Middle Schools? It's probably because the republicans want to have more of a republic ruled by philosopher/kings! (Read Plato's "Republic"). They could care less about the will of the mundane common average people, what president John Adams called, "the rabble".

Just look at how the neocons love to suppress voter turnout, especially in progressive neighborhoods. They know that a more docile, less informed nation of sheep will be a lot easier to control. [See the award-winning documentary "Uncounted" (2007), about the suppression of votes in Florida in 2000, and Ohio in 2004.]

More educated, free-thinking souls tend to act more like goats. But goats can ascend to the mountain heights of wisdom and knowledge. These are not "forbidden fruit", regardless of that silly Adamic myth.

According to surveys, after High School, the vast majority of our population seldom reads another book, and the newspaper less and less.

We need to maximize the educational potential of Cable Television so that there is a 24-hour Philosophy Channel, Science Channel, Math/Statistics Channel, etc. Eventually, enough people would watch them if they were made available!

Instead of lotteries, lets have quiz shows wherein the "Nerdy Idol" Champion wins a million dollars when they triumph. Likewise with "Debate Idol" shows! People would read, study and memorize more, rather that waste time in bars or become fatter couch potatoes!

Mandate that news programs must be truthful, and not just propaganda outlets, like the Fox Channel etc., is, too often. According to the Talk-Radio host, Thom Hartmann: In a case in Texas in 2008, an appeals court ruled that television news, in that one case at least, did not have to be truthful, and upheld the firing of two reporters because they refused to lie in their report! The court said that news agencies should have the freedom of speech to lie, and fire their reporters if they insist on reporting only truth! This is a very dangerous precedent, and it needs to be corrected while it's only a bushfire.

Joseph Smith, Jr., stated in 1844 that the prisons in this country should be schools of learning. He was correct then and it should be our goal here in America today. The US has one of the highest recidivism rates of any industrialized nation in the world. How could this possibly be?
Part of the problem is the recent shift towards having the Commons of our prisons privately owned and turned into business-for-profit! The Commons in any country, including the police, fire, and prison systems, should always be run only by the government, whether local, state, or national. A severe conflict of interest is bound to emerge when monetary profit and greed enter the picture.

Naturally, a private-prison company would desire filling their prisons as fast as possible so that there would be a need to build even more prisons... like K-Mart! This is also why so many inmates are still incarcerated for such long terms for petty violations, like merely smoking a joint, etc.

A study was done in 2001-7, wherein 600 inmates in the US were given educational classes while they were in jail. They were deliberately treated with respect and kindness. After their release from prison their ability to adjust to society and fit in was studied and followed. After being released for five years, not one inmate went back to jail! The recidivism rate was cut from 70% to 0%! Thom Hartmann mentioned this on this Talk-Radio program. I'm still trying to document this study.

We need to bring educational lectures to the prison t.v. sets, build lecture auditoriums, and update their libraries with up-to-date non-partisan textbooks.

If an inmate finishes middle school or earns a high school diploma, a certain percentage would be taken off his Sentence. If he earns an Associates Degree of two years of college, another percentage is removed from his sentence. The same would be true of a bachelor's degree, a master's degree and a doctorate.

Let's give these tragic lives the incentive to improve their station while in prison, rather than giving up on their potential and letting them waste their years viewing girlie magazines, smuggling in dope, seducing, raping and/or fighting one another.

For completing one's homework or passing a test, prompt rewards could be given, like more time in the outdoor exercise yard, a better choice of food, a free candy bar, etc.

Initially, it may be difficult to raise the support and funding for such a charitable prison system, rather than the current hateful and vindictive system, but in the long term it would save our society millions, if not billions of dollars.

The Great Open Democracy, (The Democratic Party, or, G.O.D.), has been responsible for practically all of the legislation in Congress during the past ten years that has helped the working and middle classes. Unfortunately though, the GOD was in the minority in both Houses of Congress during the past ten years.

GOD majorities in the U.S. from 1934 to 1980 provided a golden era for our working and middle class. The top tax rate for the millionaires and billionaires was from 94% to 70%, which percent was taxed on that amount earned above $3.2 million a year, the “margin”. (The regular tax rate was collected on that amount earned below the margin of 3.2 million dollars in a year.

This is why there were so few large economic bubbles during this 46 year span of relatively good economic times. Millionaires had far less money to mindlessly gamble with their cronies in the Wall Street casinos, etc.

Reagan had the top tax rate lowered from 70% to a paltry 28%, and had the audacity to, at the same time, raise the lowest/worker’s tax bracket from 11% to 15%. This was the first time in U.S. history that both ends moved simultaneously! Now, how was that for purported class fairness?

Propaganda alert: The bigger and more often a Big Lie is told, the easier it is for the less educated masses to gullibly believe it. If there were 500 (50,000 watt) progressive Talk Radio stations, national media education would be much more fair and easier for We The People to see through fascistic Flush Limbaugh/Joseph McCarthyesque propaganda!

To fund Single-Pay Medicare-For-All , Social Security (remove the $90,000 cap), National Debt, and National Trade Deficit (equalize import tariffs with China and Japan, etc.), we need to ROLL BACK THE REAGAN/BUSH TAX CUTS, NOW, and not wait for any to expire in 2011!

The first Reagan Tax Cut of 1982 was the largest tax cut in U.S. history and helped cause more than a three trillion dollar deficit, which deficit was more than the deficits of all the U.S. presidents from Washington to Carter combined!

This gave Reagan the excuse he needed to raid the Social Security Trust Fund... because the nation was... "low on money"!

Indeed, this was all part of Reagan's master plan to sabotage and destroy the inspired worker/middle-class entitlement program of Social Security. Talk about Machiavellian!

The FDR/Truman/Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon/Ford/Carter top tax rates of from 94% to 70% would provide the most convenient and logical source of immediate funds... (besides borrowing another 3 trillion dollars from China, which would again be really stupid and short-sighted.)

Hoover had the top tax rate raised from 25% to 65%, and then FDR raised it to 80% and then to 94% three years after being elected. This was his #1 economic strategy, and it, more that any other monetary logistic, enabled him to quickly defeat the Great Depression and win WW2.

President Obama needs to raise the top tax rate back up to at least 90% just as promptly! An 8 million dollar "margin" could be on the table, because inflation since 1980 has increased 250%, and 2.5 x $3.2 million would equal an $8 million adjusted margin. This "margin" could always be lowered again later after we win our wars and balance our national economic books. The top tax rate of 90% though, should not be lowered as that rate proved in the 30s, 40s, and 50s that it was indeed effective in stabilizing the middle class and in keeping the super rich from creating large economic bubbles by wreckless gambling on Wall Street and real estate, etc.

These years, from 1934 to 1980, provide overwhelming evidence that FDR was a very wise and powerful leader. He taught us that the higher the top tax rate... the faster our nation was able, and will be able to balance our economic books and provide a reasonable, pragmatic surplus for any future rainy day/year/decade/generation.

Now is the time to act truly smart... to act truly inspired!

If you basically agree with me, please help me lobby by writing your congresspersons, senators, and especially, President Obama at: Whitehouse.gov/contact/.

Thank you very much!

P.S. If you disagree with me, let me know that also, because I love to debate and convert honest, sincere, searching earthpeople!

HEALTHCARE: MEDICARE PART E (“E” for Everybody who wants to choose it”) is the best PUBLIC OPTION. But there are additional configurations that should be considered, either as part of the present health care legislation or after the bill is passed:

MEDICARE PART N (“N” for NAMI: The National Alliance on Mental Illness) By putting this robust and successful national grassroots organization under the umbrella of Medicare, more prompt and better treatment would be made available to the mentally ill. Organized in 1979, it is the most formidalbe grassroots mental health organization in the country with affiliates in over 1,100 communities and with yearly NAMI walks in 80 cities. Over 500,000 participants have walked to promote hope and recovery. Since Governor Ronald Reagan of California closed down most of the mental hospitals in that state in the 1970s, the mentally ill have been tragically neglected and forgotten. It’s time for Medicare to reach out to these lost sheep... these lost souls-- thousands of whom have to beg for food and sleep on the sidewalks at night across this nation.

MEDICARE PART T (“T” for TEETH, i.e. DENTAL CARE) People can die for lack of dental care and this service should also eventually be placed under the unbrella of Medicare.

MEDICARE PART V (“V” for VISION CARE) Some speculate that the main reason most of the impressionistic oil painters painted in their style was because many simply needed glasses and either didn’t know it or couldn’t afford a pair. The people of America should be able to see clearly, and in the long run it would actually save money because they would be able to contribute more to society. Vision care should also eventually be put under the umbrella of Medicare.

AFGHANISTAN: You both should read or listen to the recently released audiobook called: “SEEDS OF TERROR. HOW HEROIN IS BANKROLLING THE TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA“ by Gretchen Peters, 2009. Absolutely, no additional troops should be sent to Afghanistan until the source of the funding of these terrorists is obliterated. Why did the US government order the slaughter of the western buffalo? To remove the source of income of the Indians. (A tragic and misquided policy-- but it did work.) 80% of the revenue for the Taliban and Al Qaeda comes from the poppy/opium/heroin trade in southern Afghanistan and "Hellmen" Province. FDR had the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corp, and you need your CCC-- the Crop Chop Corp. Perhaps the crops shouldn’t all be chopped and destroyed-- just confiscated, so that the legal use of pain killers, like morphine, etc. can become less expensive than tylenol tablets. There are probably millions of 3rd world persons on this planet who could use an inexpensive remedy for the pain that they endure. It’s pointless to support a corrupt leader like Karsi. Perhaps the country should be broken up into more managable areas along straight longitudinal and latitudinal lines-- like into “TALIBANISTAN”. “POPPYSTAN”, and “AL QAEDASTAN”. Please visit my website at: PulitzerPost.com/healthcare// to see my illustration/cartoon of this idea.

In appreciation for the recent energetic work you have exerted to bless America with the pragmatic PUBLIC-OPTION of MEDICARE PART E (“E” for Everybody who wants, needs, and chooses it), I would like to, in turn, bless you with a few minutes of entertainment to help lighten your load and reduce your stress. Enjoy:

The following is a scene called, “SOCRATES VS. ZEUS”, from the larger play/screenplay “THE PLANET HEAVEN AND THE MOON HELL” by Arthur J. Earthmann, playwright.

Location: Outside the main courthouse in the capital city of the Planet Heaven, a titillating reporter is speaking into the camera. It is April 1, 2010 Earth-Saving-Time.

This is RUTH TRUTH of Tell-a-Vision station KGOD reporting from the PLANET HEAVEN:

Charges of GENOCIDE were brought today against ZEUS by SOCRATES in an effort to clear his name which was sullied in Greece around 400 b.c. (A great earthquake had killed a lot of the inhabitants of the island of Crete to the south a few years before his trial. Is this a just continuation of the Trial of Socrates that was so tragically cut short by the untimely death of Socrates? Stay tuned!)

With Zeus in the witness chair and GODD presiding as judge, Socrates begins his opening statement by reminding the jury of the recent earthquakes, fires, tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes and tornadoes etc. on Planet Earth...

Standing two yards away, leaning forward, and looking the defendant, Zeus, straight in the eye without blinking, Socrates asks Zeus, "You claim to be OMNISCIENT, that is... ALL KNOWING, correct?

Zeus answers, "Yes, I always have been, am now, and always will be, eternally in to the future".

Socrates, quickly turning, and locking eye contact with Zeus, again: "You also claim to be OMNIPOTENT, that is, ALL POWERFUL... is this correct?"

Zeus: "Yes, I always have been, am now, and always will be, eternally in to the future".

Socrates, deliberately turns and again scans his eyes upon the earnest eyes of each member of the jury: "Are you inferring that on December 25, 2009, (Christmas day on Planet Earth, the day before), that you knew that around a quarter-million Earth people would be killed the very next day, and you did nothing to warn them or even stop that GENOCIDE from occurring, even though you had the power to do so?!"

MR. SUPERGODD, the defense attorney for Zeus, jumps to his feet and shouts: "Objection your honor!"

Suddenly, the courtroom begins to violently shake, pictures fall from the walls, tremendous claps of thunder and lightening startle the jury and the rest of the attendees...

The judge jumps up and with outstretched arms yells: "Recess!, recess! recess!

I was really pleased with Rep. Grayson's speach on the House floor yesterday. Finally, a congressman has stood up to the food throwing republicans with just deserts. In case you missed the speech, here is a portion of it on YouTube. For more coverage, simply Google!

Suggestion: In the future, instead of saying that Plan A for the Republicans is "Don't Get Sick”, and Plan B, if you do get sick is to..."Die Quickly", please tone than down at least one notch and more truthfully declare that the Plan B of the Top For-Profit Health Insurance CEOs by inference is to "Die Quickly to help preserve the CEO's profits", and since most republican congressmen are paid puppets of those same CEOs, therefore, the republican Plan C would be "Die quickly". That extra step in logic really needs to be inserted to help clarify causation, blame and accountability.

According to my research, around 100,000 Americans die each year because of a lack of either health care or proper treatment. To view my sources please visit my Website at: MedicarePart-E.org/Healthcare ("E" for everybody who chooses Medicare".) located in my recent "Letters to President Obama" column on the right.

HEALTH CARE INSURANCE: In your recent speech to a combined session of congress you neglected to mention or sufficiently stress the following points: The easiest way to expand health care insurance to the 56 million in the US who do not have coverage would be to simply expand Medicare. Call it: MEDICARE PART E... with “E” standing for “EVERYBODY WHO CHOOSES IT”. If someone is satisfied with the health insurance that they already have, then they can choose not to acquire part “E”. You would not need a 1,000+ page bill, but probably only a 100 page bill or less. Of course, it would also include all of your main “Articles of Healthcare” like “no recission” or “denying of care when one gets sick”, etc.

Also, you neglected to mention the specific scope of the uninsured heathcare tragedy in the US. According to an INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE Report... “Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the U.S. Estimates of the total number of people in the US who DIE because of lack of medical care range upwards of nearly 100,000 A YEAR.” (From: Google/Wikipedia/“healthcare”) Upon extrapolation, this would come to a total of around one million unnecessary US deaths in the past decade.

The total US COMBAT DEATHS from the ten most tragic wars un US history come to 1,308,389. These include 1. American Civil War (625,000), 2. World War II (405,399), 3. World War I (116,516), 4. Vietnam War (58,151), 5. Korean War (36,516), 6. American Revolutionary War (25,000), 7. War of 1812 (20,000), 8. Mexican American War (13,283), 9. Iraq War (4,328), 10. Phillipine-American War (4,196). (From: Google/Wikipedia/“US War Dead”).

This means that the total unnecessary US deaths from the lack of medical care (and/or health insurance) during the past 13 YEARS would approximately EQUAL the 1.3 million US deaths in the 10 most tragic US wars.

Another way to more promptly change the ATTITUDES of the top 10 US for-profit healthcare CEOs from that of a selfish, evil, legal murder by omission cult, and greedy attitude, to that of Christ-like, Godly, unselfish, charitible attitude, would be to subliminally embarrass and/or scare them in to it. Consider a sequel to the play/movie “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller. A future play/movie could be called: “Death of the 10 most-wanted CEOs”, by Jeneral Cryst, Jr. (God could just strike their homes one- by-one with lightening, etc.!) Because the subject matter is so serious, perhaps it should be a comedy... like a comparison with the 1889 French Revolution and “CEO” Louie the 16th, a la “History of the World, Part 1” by Mel Brooks. (If I don’t hear an objection from you within 40 days and 40 nights, I will “green-light” this momentous and historic project.)

President Obama for decades now the US has had a “War on Poverty” and a “War on Drugs”. Perhaps, we need to have a formally declared “WAR ON SICKNESS”. (I’m sure that you can come up with a better title.) Hopefully, this crisis, and the “CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PERSONS” issue presently being debated in the Supreme Court, will not cause another US Civil War. But, in the play/movie (and/or, in reality) it certainly could, couldn’t it? Or, IS our blessed nation already in our SECOND CIVIL WAR, only just very few are conscious enough to realize it, even though 1.3 million+ have already died? Afterall, Rupert Murdoch recently said, “We now have class warfare and the rich are winning”. I add, “maybe for now, but, God and Christ willing, not for too much longer.”

President Obama, it took FDR three years to become a true progressive and champion of Social Security, etc. Hopefully, it will only take you less than one year. WE THE PEOPLE also have the audacity of hope.

Please adopt the following approach to health care so eloquently stated by ThomHartmann.com in his newsletter to me today. I quote:

“The President this morning admitted on national television that he lost control of the message with health care. It's time to reboot - and use a very, very, very simple message so all Americans can understand it.

Let's use Medicare, which nearly every American understands. Just create "Medicare Part E" where the "E" represents "everybody." Just let any citizen in the US buy into Medicare.

It would be so easy. No need to reinvent the wheel with this so-called "public option" that's a whole new program from the ground up. Medicare already exists. It works. Some people will like it, others won't - just like the Post Office versus FedEx analogy the President is so comfortable with.

Just pass a simple bill - it could probably be just a few lines, like when Medicare was expanded to include disabled people - that says that any American citizen can buy into the program at a rate to be set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it.

Thus, Medicare Part E would be revenue neutral!

To make it available to people of low income, Congress could raise the rates slightly for all currently non-eligible people (like me - under 65) to cover the cost of below-200%-of-poverty people. Revenue neutral again.

This blows up all the rumors about death panels and grandma and everything else: everybody knows what Medicare is. Those who scorn it can go with United Healthcare and it's $100 million/year CEO. Those who like Medicare can buy into Part E. Simplicity itself.

Of course, we'd like a few fixes, like letting negotiate drug prices, and fill some of the other holes Republicans and AARP and the big insurance lobbyists have drilled into Medicare so people have to buy "supplemental" insurance, but that can wait for the second round. Let's get this done first.

Simple stuff. Medicare for anybody who wants it. Private health insurance for those who don't. Easy message. Even Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley can understand it. Sarah Palin can buy into it, or ignore it. No death panels, no granny plugs, nothing. Just a few sentences.

Replace the "you must be disabled or 65" with "here's what it'll cost if you want to buy in, and here's the sliding scale of subsidies we'll give you if you're poor, paid for by everybody else who's buying in." This creates Part E.

And if this fails - if the Congress can't get out from under their corporate overlords - at the very least pass the Kucinich amendment that will allow individual states to create their own single-payer systems, as was done in Canada a generation ago.”

President Obama, I hope that this helps you with your address to a joint session of Congress tonight.

HEALTHCARE SPEECH BACKBONE: FDR had POLIO yet he manifested a glorious abundance of courage and power. You too must tap into this audacity of fearless firmness tomorrow night. Please study these eloquent and forceful words given by FDR on Halloween Day, at Madison Square Garden, New York, just a week before his 1936 second victorious landslide election. Also, simply Google this speech on YouTube. I’m sure it will invigorate you mightily to listen to his soaring spirit.

“For twelve years our nation was afflicted with fear nothing, be nothing, do nothing government. (applause) The nation looked to that government but that government looked away.(applause) Nine mocking years with the GOLDEN CALF and three long years of the scourge. (applause) Nine crazy years at the ticker and 3 long years in the BREAD LINE. (applause) Nine mad years of MIRAGE, and three long years of despair. (applause) And my friends, powerful influences try today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that government is best which is most indifferent to mankind. (applause) For nearly four years now you’ve had an administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. (applause) And I can assure you that we will keep our sleeves rolled up. (applause) We have to struggle with the old enemies of peace, business and FINANCIAL monopolies, SPECULATION, reckless BANKING, class antagonism, sectionalism, WAR profiteering. They have begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs and we know now that government by ORGANIZED MONEY is just as dangerous as government by organized MOBS. (loud applause) Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their HATE for me and I welcome their HATRED. (very loud long applause) I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their MASTER.” (very loud long applause) [From YouTube’s actual recording of this speech]

President Obama, please be true to the inner spirit of your campaign for president and insist on a health care program with a robust comprehensive universal PUBLIC OPTION without any “probation trigger” or impotent “co-ops”. Expand MEDICAID and MEDICARE for all of the forty-six million citizens who do not have any health insurance coverage. As JESUS CHRIST proclaimed...CHARITY is the greatest gift of all. If you have helped the sick and the hungry, you have done it unto me. Also, please throw the obscene CEO money-changers out of the temple of democracy. WE THE PEOPLE and GOD are counting on you. (FDR had bread lines... you have healthcare lines.)

‘“Trigger’ Could Be Set On Healthcare”, by Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons / Fr. 9-4-09 / Pages A1 & A24

PRESIDENT OBAMA, you should definitely NOT adopt any “TRIGGER” with regards to the “PUBLIC OPTION” as suggested by Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine (R). (Bob Dole last Sunday mentioned using a “5 year trigger” and Snowe would probably use a similar timeline.) Let’s call such a trigger for what it really is: the sentencing of the for-profit health insurance companies to 5 years PROBATION for committing legal bribery, theft, fraud and murder.

Of all of the top 30 industrialized countries on this planet, the blessed, mostly christian USA is the ONLY one that does NOT provide universal healthcare. What HYPOCRISY!

Also, in ALL of these other countries, if any health insurance provider is caught charging for-profit for PRIMARY care on the suffering of others, they are charged with a FELONY and their business license is REVOKED. (Breast implants, etc. can be for-profit, though.) But, here in abundant America such EVIL is rewarded with millions of dollars to the opressors!

CEO Bill McGuire of Healthnet was paid $2.7 BILLION while there from 1998 to 2006 and was finally forced out by the fed for backdating stock options. He was rewarded the largest golden parachute in American corporate history upon retiring... a whopping $1.3 BILLION! And for what? Mainly denying healthcare because of pre-existing conditions or for being too sick. His successor, CEO Stephen Helmsley, is continuing this greed and corruption and is being paid around $10 million a month plus stock options. These and similar CEOs and corporations do not desearve any “TRIGGER OF PROBATION”. They really desearve JAIL-TIME right now! (An inspired US Supreme Court would agree that our laws should be changed to provide such righteous judgement.)

Perhaps all of these for-profit CEOs could audition for the lead in a theatrical sequel to the 1949 play/movie “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller. It will be called “DEATH of a CEO”... by Jeneral Cryst, Jr.!

The article by Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons could have just as well been titled, “‘Mouse Trap’ Could Be Set On Healthcare”! Even if such a ridiculous scenario were to be passed, the republicans and blue-dog democrats would simply wait until they have a majority in either house and “undo” said “trigger”. They infer that the support of Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine (R) for a “trigger” would provide a patina of bipartisanship to the measure. I submit that such a patina would metaphorically contain poisonous lead... and would not lead to any real pragmatic substantive long-term health insurance legislation... and would be ill-advised.

This is the time for President Obama to have the audacity to acquire the nerves of steel that were exhibited by FDR. Even with polio, FDR showed more backbone than would be expressed by Obama if BHO were to “blink” and back down and placate the greedy corporatists.

From 1998 to 2006 William “Dollar Bill” McGuire was the CEO of HealthNet, the second largest for-profit healthcare insurance company in the United States. When the feds forced him out because of fraudulent back-dating he had been paid a total of $2.7 billion including stock options. In his final year he was rewarded with the largest corporate golden parachute in American history of $1.3 billion! His successor, Stephen Helmsley, is now paid $10 million a year which translates into around $100,000 a hour. And, truth is, they were primarily paid for denying healthcare because of pre-existing conditions, etc. CEOs and for-profit health insurance corporations like this one do not need more “trigger years” to improve and or atone for their greedy, evil and fraudulent ways!

Of the top 30 industrialized nations on this planet, ours is the only nation that has for-profit health insurance. In all of the others, for-profit is forbidden, and any company that is caught trying to make a profit on the misfortune and illness of others is charged with a felony and they loose their business license! That should be the policy here in America also.

The time for “triggers”, and “co-ops” and all these other “mouse trap games” and “patinas with lead” are over. President Obama must simply stay with what he promised us in his campaign, and the best application of that would be Universal Comprehensive Single-Pay Medicare-For-All as a Public Option! If this fails this year, he can always try again in the Spring! But, call their bluff now he must! If he does not do so he will be destined to be only a disappointing one-term president.

HEALTHCARE: MEDICARE-FOR-ALL SINGLE-PAY PUBLIC OPTION: The biggest obstacle to the issue of healthcare is financial, not the philosophy of health or of care. The same is true for Social Security. Therefore, I would like to make the following suggestion on how to raise significant revenue for both issues. I will quote from a newsletter sent to me from ThomHartmann.com dated 9.1.09. He is the nation’s most listened to, powerful, intelligent and eloquent progressive talk-radio host and comes on the air here in Beverly Hills the same time Rush Limbaugh does, but at the other end of the radio dial:

“The AFL-CIO, and some of the Democrats, would like to assess a small tax - about a tenth of a percent - on every stock transaction. It's a good start but not enough. If we were to instate a .25 percent STET (tax) on every stock, swap, derivative, or other trade today, it would produce -- in its first year -- around $150 billion in revenue. Wall Street would be generating the money to fund its own bailout. After Hoover's 1931 bailout of the banks failed, FDR did a cold reboot of the entire system, putting into place strong rules to prevent speculative abuse. And he doubled the STET tax, both producing revenue that more than funded the Securities and Exchange Commission and further prevented a repeat of the speculative bubble of the 1920s that led directly to the Republican Great Depression. So let's go back to what works.” I believe that you could and should even more than double that!

President Obama, you should listen to the speech that FDR gave a week before his 1936 election. Thom Hartmann played the high points of it on his national talk-radio show a couple of days ago. Please call his radio station at KPOJ in Portland, Oregon -- they will be happy to share it with you and give you a copy. Basically, what FDR stated was that he realized that he would have to stand tall against his enemies, who included the greedy corporatists, and financial speculators who were more interested in becoming wealthier than helping the unfortunate, the unemployed, the sick and the hungry. The audience applauded him for two minutes!

This healthcare debate is really more about a battle to win millions of dollars from the health insurance, pharmaceutical, and medical equipment industries for further political campaigns, or to avoid that temptation and channel principal towards helping the sick and the needy. You know what choice Jesus Christ would make. According to Google, He performed 36 miracles, 31 of which pertained to healthcare or feeding the hungry. I hope and pray that you will be strong enough to live by your campaign promises to continue on the inspired narrow path of making healthcare, in the words of Ted Kennedy... “a RIGHT and not a privilege”.

Also, it’s time to forget about republican support. Too many of them are only selfishly interested in making this issue your Waterloo so that they can gain control of congress in 2010. Ram through the public option of Medicare-for-all by RECONCILIATION. Remain true to your liberal progressive base and AVOID the temptation of any “CO-OPS” or “TRIGGERS”. They are only traps of rhetorical fool’s gold quicksand. You cannot serve God and man, and you cannot serve both We the People and the selfish greedy evil rich corporations.

I bless you with nerves of steel and the courage and audacity to endure to the end of this, the greatest and most important debate of a century.

This was brought about last week by local pressure from twenty democratic party chairpersons of twenty counties in the state of Montana.

Cynthia Wilson, a county chairperson, was instrumental in orchestrating this important turn of events by e-mailing 19 other chairpersons of 19 other counties in Montana which resulted in a draft-resolution of all 20 of them to publically object to Sen. Baucus’s previous stands of obfuscation and doubt on the issue of a public option.

After a statewide conference call with all of the 20 county chairpersons, and with their threat of going public with T.V. appearances and newspaper articles, etc., Sen. Baucus finally agreed that a strong public option was the best way to improve and cure the present ills in our national healthcare insurance system.

President Obama, I herewith implore you to seize upon the success of these logistics and arrange for all the states which have blue-dog democrats who are applying a monkey-wrench into the public option healthcare insurance format to have their state’s county democratic chairpersons contacted and energetically lobbied to apply the same logistics as was used in Montana.

More information can be obtained at: montanademocrats.org and the Coalition of the United Montana Democratic Central Committees.

Also, please tap into the following fertile wells for fund-raising for healthcare insurance reform: lower the Social Security retirement age from 65 to 55 to increase fresh employment and revenue by also raising the Social Security payments to an inflation-adjusted 1960 level of a 20% increase; roll back the Reagan/Bush tax cuts; balance our import tariffs with China and Japan, etc.; remove the $90.000 cap on Social Security taxes; clarify and enforce that corporations are not persons and therefore are not protected by those same rights; enforce the Sherman Antitrust act and bust up the numerous obscene corporate conglomerates; and reempose the oversight restrictions in Wall Street finance and banking that were removed in the 1982 Garn... Act and the 1998 Graham... Act.

All the money you will need for domestic healthcare insurance and Social Security reforms would herewith be provided... with plenty to spare for a rainy day, week, month, year, or decade!

HEALTH CARE INSURANCE: I was very disappointed upon hearing you back away from the “Public Option” concept in your recent town halls in New Hampshire and Colorado. It looks like the pressure of the insurance lobby’s spending of $1.4 million a day against it is finally getting to you. I had wished that you would be stronger than this, but as I still have the audacity of hope... that you are still sincerely looking for an obtainable pragmatic alternative, I offer the following suggestion once again: Let everyone in this country simply buy into MEDICARE FOR ALL on a pro-rated sliding scale.

Most republicans would not dare go against this PUBLIC OPTION, for it, like Social Security, is the 3rd rail of national politics. Even most large for-profit insurance companies would be economically and politically check-mated if you choose this path! You should mention this as a last resort publicly in your next town hall.

You mentioned that with your agenda that 1/2 of the DONUT HOLE IN MEDICARE PART D could be eliminated. Good start, but why not go for eliminating the entire donut hole? (Why drop the price of a used car 50% before you are even in the closing booth! Wait until both House and Senate bills are formulated before you “show your hand of cards", etc. How much would it cost to cure the entire donut hole in billions of dollars? You at least need to float this idea of a 100% cure! It could easily be done if you were to ROLL BACK THE REAGAN/BUSH TAX CUTS!

As a casual aside you mentioned that you wanted to ROLL BACK THE BUSH TAX CUTS, but you did not stay on that point and hammer it home enough! You need to tell the American people how many specific billions of dollars would be raised by each roll-back... the BUSH roll-back and the REAGAN roll-back.

I was pleased with your increased energy and passion in both town halls especially against the greedy evil monopolistic corporate for-profit insurance companies, but you need to mention the specific amount of billions of dollars that are being stolen from the public in inflated overhead costs and by the denying of care so that their selfish CEOs can fill their pockets. Like William McGuire of Healthnet who was rewarded with the largest golden parachute in American corporate history in 2006 of $1.3 billion. (When the Feds ousted him for back-dating fraud in 2006, his total income and stock-option package there from 1998 to 2006 was $2.6 billion!) Also, the current CEO of HealthNet, Stephen Helmsley, was paid $13.2 million in 2007 and now the total value of his unexercised stock options is a whopping $744,232,068 according to Forbes! The public needs these specific numbers to fuel their anger. Just saying “a lot” does not and will not close the deal. (For the top 6 for-profit health insurance CEOs and the millions of their incomes, just Google: SickforProfit.com.)

Governor John Dean and Sen. Bernie Sanders VT and more than 60 congressmen are correct when they stated recently that without a strong, comprehensive, universal public option... there should not and will not be a health care insurance bill because the liberals and progressive democrats will simply not sell their souls to support such a watered down approach... and I agree with them. UNIVERSAL MEDICARE AS THE PUBLIC OPTION is the common denominator solution!

Please listen to and watch more videos of FDR, LBJ, and JFK! You need to be even more theatrically passionate like they were. You are like Michael Jordan on a bad basketball team. Please surround yourself with better players and don’t waiver from what you ran for president on... a strong, universal, comprehensive healthcare insurance PUBLIC OPTION. SINGLE-PAY MEDICARE FOR ALL would be the best, least complicated solution.

HEALTHCARE TOWN HALL MEETINGS: It appears that when one Googles for “Democratic Party Town Hall Meetings Nationwide” that a comprehensive list appears posted by the far right conservative republicans. But if one Googles for “Republican Party Town Hall Meetings Nationwide” the same list shows up... of the same democratic party meetings but not republican town hall meetings.

Please arrange for the National Democratic Party to post on the Internet a comprehensive list of all of the scheduled nationwide summer REPUBLICAN TOWN HALL MEETINGS so progressive liberal democratic independents like myself can attend and contribute to the hopefully CIVIL discourse.

The recent unruly rowdy mob-like behavior at numerous Democratic Party Town Hall Meetings is indeed troubling. I hear that the far right is busing in agitators like they did during the attempted Florida recount of the 10,000 uncounted and questionable votes in the 2000 presidential election.

These fascistic logistics cannot be tolerated again like they were in 2000. If necessary, the Democratic party should truck in its own armed security guards. At a minimum, a hundred or more “SECURITY HATS”, etc. should be loaned out to those sympathetic with proper decorum so that they will have more subliminal leverage to maintain order.

Free speech is not the freedom to shout down the free speech of someone else! That thug-like behavior was what Hitler and Stalin used.

Jesus Christ said to turn the other cheek and not to shout back. Well, we all know what happened to him, don’t we!? If all else fails, Democrats must shout back and, if necessary, push back, and fight back!

Let’s all appeal to reason and not let the perfect become the enemy of the good, or let the good become the enemy of the perfect. Yes we can!

TARGET HEALTH INSURANCE MORE THAN HEALTH CARE: I thank you for your prompt response. President Carter found my advice to him so helpful on his campaign trail that he invited me to three inauguration parties in D.C. upon his election. Hopefully, I can be as helpful to you on the health insurance issue. As previously stated, the center of the target on this issue is really the achieving of a health insurance plan that would win the support of the left, right and center. Most of that plan we already have in place and it’s staring us in the face... it’s called IMPROVED MEDICARE!

Last week, a democratic senator submitted a bill in the senate that would have called the bluff of republicans and would have abolished MEDICARE... and NOT ONE republican voted for it! Granted, most conservatives are under the spell of corporations and draw near charitable healthcare with their lips, but their hearts are far from the concept...(to draw from the rhetoric of Jesus Christ)... but here is the common denominator with this issue. Why invent the wheel all over again! MEDICARE WORKS and is very popular! So why don’t you refer to it more and simply show how you plan to IMPROVE MEDICARE!

“Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) says the many senior citizens and military veterans in his district are already enjoying the benefit of federal health programs, but some hardly seen to realize it. He cites an 80-year-old man who told him to ‘keep the government out of my MEDICARE’ --- even though MEDICARE had paid for his successful hearth surgery 15 years ago.” (Los Angeles Times, 8-3-09, page A11)

President Obama, you need to educate the millions of uneducated masses in this great country about the true positive aspects and HISTORY of MEDICARE: the millions of successful surgeries that have been performed... and name them by category. You should hold town hall meetings featuring thousands who have been helped by MEDICARE and have them give testimonials with you on live television and in TV commercials! And emphasize that MEDICARE IS A SINGLE-PAY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PROGRAM THAT WORKS WELL, BUT CAN AND WILL BE IMPROVED UPON. I have not seen or heard this yet from you or any prominent congressman or governor.

Your ultimate BILL could be so short and simple... just a few sentences long: It is herewith proposed that all citizens of the United States shall be able to buy into the PUBLIC OPTION OF MEDICARE, and that said program will be improved upon in the following ways... (and then you mention... no pre-existing conditions, exorbitant expenses, no cost-sharing for preventative care, no dropping of coverage is you become seriously ill, no gender discrimination, no annual or lifetime caps, extended coverage for young adults, and guarantee of renewal so long as premiums are paid, etc.).

Now, see how easy that was. The congress are like a herd of cats, and you are trying to shepherd them. They are making this issue way too complicated, and some are doing it on purpose, to confuse and obfuscate. This has helped cause your poll numbers to fall 10% in the past month! Your mission must be to keep it simple, and to keep bringing up the federal health program that even the republicans would dare not end, and probably not even seriously thwart... IMPROVED MEDICARE FOR ALL!

Presently, MEDICARE’S overhead and administrative costs average 3%, whereas, for-profit insurance companies average an overhead of from 20% to 50%. Why? So they can pay their greedy selfish CEOs like William McGuire of HealthNet, the second largest for-profit health insurance company in the country, a of $2.7 BILLION salary and severance package in 2006, the largest golden parachute in corporate history. (Just Google him.) You must educate the masses more on just who and how evil these antagonists are and get the public emotionally angry at them! Also, that the principal protagonist in this drama is... not you, but the past, present and future thankful recipients of IMPROVED MEDICARE FOR ALL AS A PUBLIC OPTION! Yes you can!

HEALTHCARE: You should know that William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, was recently asked that he felt that the republicans should do with President Obama’s health care bill, and he responded: “I think we should kill it”. This sort of inflammatory rhetoric should not be used for obvious reasons. There might be some red-necked neo-cons high on PCP etc., that could misunderstand the message and set off to do something ________________. Please see if you can get your attack dog, Joe Biden, to talk to Kristol and admonish him to be kinder and gentler with his propaganda rhetoric.

As you are a Constitutional scholar you probably already realize that is was and is within your power to ORDER THE SENATE TO STAY IN SESSION and postpone it’s Summer recess until it comes up with its version of your health care agenda. FDR and LBJ would have done so. I’m wondering why you, BHO, did not implement this option. I think that you definitely should have. And just like the Harvard arrest fiasco, you could change your position and order the senate to do its urgent work. You’re president, not Harry Reid. Don’t let him manipulate you! Be tougher! Lead stronger!

All culture is a collection of the numerous stories that define its traditions and future objectives. But the only way a super hero can become truly super is if he does battle against a supper villain. The buildup of the Joker is really what makes Batman super. One of your main problems with your healthcare presentation is that you have not yet adequately taped into the emotional potential of your real and true scapegoats: the evil, greedy health insurance CEOs like BILL MCGUIRE, past president of Health Net, the second largest such company in America. As I have mentioned before, his golden parachute of $2.7 billion, including stock options, was the largest in American corporate history. (Just Google him to verify. The feds shut him down for back dating, etc. in 2006.)

As Hitler used the jews, and as George Bush used the terrorists, you also need to use your scapegoats for emotional propagandistic advantage. It’s perhaps unfortunate, but this is the truth. Sometimes you must be Machiavellian to accomplish your goals. O.K., so you’re not the type to name names... then just talk about corrupt for-profit health insurance CEOs in a perfectly vague sense, but talk you must. Mention that of all the top 30 industrialized nations only the US does not provide universal health care. Furthermore, in all of those countries a health insurance company that is caught selling its services “for-profit” is charged with a felony and its license is revoked! Mention this! I doubt your bill will pass without this additional blast of emotional hurricane force wind. You’re press conference last week was way too weak on this point. Just to mention greedy CEOs in passing simply does not CLOSE THE EMOTIONAL DEAL. Listen to FDR rants about the “robber barons”, the “royalists” etc. He really got excited, but he didn’t get specific and mention anybody. I think he would have gotten more support if he would have. Your call.

FUNDING: If you, Pelosi and Reid can’t get enough funding by raising the taxes high enough on the millionaires, then why not simply equalize our import tariffs? When we export a car to China, Japan or S. Korea, we are charged a 20% import tariff by them. But if they want to export a car to the US, we only charge a 2% import tariff. Don’t you have the power to equalize this by presidential decree, for heaven’s sake?
What about eliminating the cap of $90,000 on Social Security? How about rolling back the Reagan/Bush Tax Cuts. How about implementing the Sherman Antitrust Act like Teddy Roosevelt did when he broke up the Union Pacific Railroad into 27 companies! Please act less like Bill Clinton, the centrist, and act more like Franklin Roosevelt, the flamboyant progressive and you will succeed at healthcare. Yes You Can!

HEALTHCARE: To help you confront the pompous opposition of the quasi religious right to your robust health care plans, I would encourage you to Google “JESUS CHRIST MIRACLES”. Therein it states that He allegedly performed a total of 36 miracles, with 31 of them pertaining to healthcare! Healing the sick, casting out devils (mental, spiritual health), feeding the poor (preventative healthcare like our Food Stamp Program) etc. So, if Jesus Christ were walking the streets of Washington D.C. today, I am convinced that health care would be his top priority! It seems that too many conservative members of congress at acting like pharisees and sadducees and trying to sabotage your attempts to care for the sick and afflicted. As Christ implied in His Sermon on the Mount... charity was His number one platform plank.

FDR; I enthusiastically supported your candidacy for president after Mitt Romney dropped out. (I am a progressive independent Mormon). But it appears that you are acting more like Bill Clinton than my hero, Franklin Roosevelt. You need to be much more emphatic about a PUBLIC OPTION and RAISING TAXES ALOT MORE FOR THE VERY WEALTHY.

FUNDING: Granted, we need a Single-Pay Universal Comprehensive Expanded Medicare program with a pragmatic PUBLIC OPTION, but the biggest hurdle now is obviously how it is going to be funded. Here is a very simple yet intelligent solution:

PROGRESSIVE TAX RATE WITH A 45 DEGREE ANGLE: In statistics, it has been found that the most user-friendly visual graphic regarding tax rates is the ascending straight-line 45 degree angle. It suggests stability and fairness. From 1932 until 1982 the TOP TAX RATE was from 70% to 92% with a tax "margin" of $3 million... meaning, that the rich would only be taxed 90% (during the FDR/Eisenhower/Nixon administrations, for example) on that amount earned above $3 million. They would be taxed the going rate for any income below that "margin" of $3 million. These tax revenues brought us out of the Great Depression and enabled us to win World War 2. In 1932 FDR responded to the financial crisis like a 20 star economic general... and you need to do the same now with healthcare.

And so, I am proposing the following format for you to pass around in your Cabinet Meetings, etc. and see what figures your various leaders suggest: Imagine a sheet of graph paper with a horizontal "x" axis representing the nine tax rates of 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, and 90%. The vertical "y" axis would represent the nine 2" horizontal blank lines with a $ sign to the left of each line to be penciled in when negotiating. A straight line at an ascending 45 degree angle would represent the ideal monetary progressive tax rates.

Simply ask each congressperson to pencil in what amount they would find agreeable in order to raise the necessary billions to render your healthcare bill without any added cost over the next ten years. You could even have a computer software program set up wherein when one amount is changed, it would show how the other figures are affected. Tentatively agreed upon figures could be locked in place so they would not change, but the others would. This software is used all the time from Wall Street (Greed Street) to used car selling finance.

Then ask HHS Chairwoman Kathleen Sebelius and each congressperson to fill in each line "in pencil" that amount of taxes that they feel would be fair and successful at raising the necessary billions. You may want to type your proposed dollar amounts below each blank line to help provide subliminal leverage supporting your positions. Perhaps, below your figure could be typed in red ink the presently used figures.
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LIST OF 9 INCOME TAX % LEVELS: Since 1982, inflation has increase 250% and so if one multiplies the amount of the highest tax rate "margin" in 1982 of $3 million... times 2.5 would equal an $8 million "margin" in 2009. (Now, just to sweeten the pie for all of my rich millionaire and billionaire friends at the Mormon Church in Beverly Hills, where I attend church... along with Larry King and his lovely wife Shawn... I suggest initially raising the top tax rate of 90% to a "margin" of $12 million ($________), i.e. a million dollars a month “floor-plus” should be plenty to live on!) Working down my list on the sheet of my suggested tax level figures, I continue: 80%: $8 million ($________), 70%: $4 million ($________), 60%: $1 million ($________), 50%: $500,000 ($________), 40%: $250,000 ($________) (this is close to where it is now), 30%: $150,000 ($________); 20%: $50,000 ($________) (this is the present average national income); 10%: $12,000 ($________); and 1%: $ 1,000($________). (This last % is to counter the conservative claims that you are trying to enable the lowest 1/3 of the middle and lower class to not pay ANY taxes, zero, nada. Of course this is a lie, but I hear it often from Flush Limboff and Shame Hannity, et al.) The blanks are for you and others to pencil in your proposed $ amounts. After we win our wars and balance our national books then the top margin dollar amount could be raised or lowered... but the nine % fields should remain in place... like tithing! (It is best to use whole percentages in 10% increments, and whole dollar round figure levels. The present usage in federal tax law of figures like 38.6% or $186,500 seem contrived and used for the purpose of deliberate obfuscation through complexity. Simplified proposals have worked best to cause more popular public support in the 3 thousand year history of monetary and taxation propaganda.)

The OMB, etc., can provide more accurate and feasible amounts. For presentations on the floor of the House and Senate you should consider a color chart 4 feet by 4 feet or larger and a graph with vertical bars with the top of each resulting in them all ascending at a 45 degree straight-line angle. (I proposed the former single-line 45 degree angle because of the ease of creating it for the 600 copies of 8 1/2” x 11” handouts for the members of congress.)

Many “greedpublicans” favor a flat-tax which we know is very simplistic and unfair to the middle class. But implicit in its subliminal propagandistic power is an implied message of fairness by using a straight-line... implied by the term "flat". (Some even have the audacity of presenting the biblical 10% tithe as precedent and religious confirmation that God was and still is in favor of a “flat tithing tax” but, of course, that analogy is nonsense. Perhaps God or Moses et al were and are suggesting that the apparent flat 10% tithe should be interpreted as a bare minimum and that the super-rich should pay a lot higher percentage of tithing.) Now, if a flat income tax line were drawn at $200,000. and everyone who annually earns less than this amount would not pay any tax, but those who make more would pay 70%, perhaps, even I could get behind that flat tax! (I'm confident that the OMB, etc. can provide you with more accurate figures that would cause a hypothetical flat tax that would generate equivalent revenue... for the purpose of debating against it.)

In conclusion, President Obama, just remember what the ancient Greeks said: "Simplicity is beauty". Keeping your fund raising taxation proposals simple will significantly help you and Chairwoman Sebelius create persuasive arguments that will stand out in the jungle of conservative obfuscation and lies.

May the spirit of FDR lead you both to victory in this great cause, I humbly pray. WE THE PEOPLE, especially the 46 million citizens without healthcare, are counting on you.

I enthusiastically supported your candidacy for president after Mitt Romney dropped out. But it appears that you are acting more like Bill Clinton than my hero, Franklin Roosevelt.

Granted, we need a Single-Pay Universal Comprehensive Expanded Medicare program with a pragmatic Public Option, but the biggest hurdle now is obviously how it is going to be funded. Here is a very simple yet intelligent solution:

In statistics, it has been found that the most user-friendly visual graphic regarding tax rates is the ascending straight-line 45 degree angle. It suggests stability and fairness.

Many “greedpublicans” favor a flat-tax which we know is usually very unfair and simplistic. But implicit in its subliminal power is an implied message of fairness by using a straight-line... implied by the term "flat". Now, if that line were drawn at way above the median income of all US citizens, say at $200,000. and everyone who annually earns less than this amount would not pay any tax, but those who make more would pay 70%, perhaps, even I could get behind that flat tax! (I'm confident that the OMB can provide you with more accurate and reasonable figures, but you do get my point, don't you?)

So, for the successful prompt passage of an FDR quality HealthCare Bill, let's get real. We need billions of dollars and we need it fast. From 1932 until 1982 the top tax rate was from 70% to 92% with a tax "margin" of $3 million... meaning, that the rich would only be taxed 90% (during the FDR/Eisenhower/Nixon administrations, for example) on that amount earned above $3 million. They would be taxed the going rate for any income below that "margin" of $3 million. These funds brought us out of the Great Depression and enabled us to win World War 2. This is the quality of dynamic and forceful leadership we need now... FDR, as if he were a 10 star economic general!

And so, I am proposing the following format for you to pass around in your Cabinet Meetings, etc. and see what figures your various leaders suggest:

Now, draw the stable, fair, straight line at an ascending 45 degree angle.

For the vertical "y" axis, simply draw nine 2" horizontal lines with a $ sign to the left of each line.

Then ask Senator and HHS Chairwoman Sebelius to fill in each line "in pencil" of that amount of taxes that she feels would be fair and successful at raising the necessary billions to install the best Universal Comprehensive Health Care Plan with a Public Option that We The People deserve! (Pencil should be used so that the figures can be changed during negotiations. You might even print up 550 copies for every Senator and Representative to use as they dicker. You may want to type your proposed dollar amounts below the blank lines to help provide subliminal leverage supporting your position.)

Since 1982, inflation has increase 250% and so if you multiply the amount of the highest tax rate "margin" in 1982 of $3 million... times 2.5 will equal an $8 million "margin" in 2009.

Now, just to sweeten the pie for all of my rich millionaire and billionaire friends at the Mormon Church in Beverly Hills, where I attend church... along with Larry King and his lovely wife Shawn... I suggest raising the top tax rate to 90% with a "margin" of $12 million, i.e. a million dollars a month! That should be plenty to live on!

Working down my list on the sheet of my suggested tax "margin" figures, I continue: 80%: $ 8 million, 70%: $4 million, 60%: $ 1 million, 50%: 1/2 $million, 40%: $250,000; 30%: $150,000; 20%: $50,000 (this is the average national income!); 10%: $12,000; and 1%: $ 1,000. (This last % is to counter the republican claim that you are trying to get 1/3 of the middle and lower class from paying ANY taxes, zero, nada. Of course this is a lie, but I hear it all the time from Flush Limboff and Shame Hannity, et al.)

Again the OMB, etc., can provide more accurate and feasible amounts.

In conclusion, President Obama, just remember what the ancient Greeks said: "Simplicity is beauty". Keeping your economic proposals simple will significantly help you and Chairwoman Sebelius create persuasive picture graphics that will stand out in the jungle of republican obfuscation and lies.

May the spirit of FDR lead you both to victory in this great cause, I humbly pray. We The People, especially the 46 million citizens without healthcare, are counting on you.

On HEALTHCARE: I enthusiastically supported you for president because I thought that you would be more of another Franklin Roosevelt than a Bill Clinton. But now I am really beginning to wonder.

You should have been much more pro-active on pushing for Universal Comprehensive Healthcare, rather than just a Public Option. Please get out there and vocally, publicly lead rather than just modestly making phone calls behind the scenes on this top priority goal.

Even when you spoke to the AMA recently, you didn’t really push for Universal health care, nor did you mention that of the top 20 industrialized countries, the US is the only country that has “for-profit” health insurance companies. In all of the other countries, “for-profit” insurance companies are prohibited, and it is a felony if such a program is implemented by a company. Billions of dollars could be saved by reducing the “for-profit” overhead costs of from 25% to 50% to the low figure of only 3% overhead costs for Medicare.

During that AMA speech and others, lowering your expectations to just a “Public Option” , rather than “Universal Comprehensive” is like a used car salesman lowering the price of a car by 50% before the customer even begins to demand it!

It is still not too late to raise that ideal goal of Universal Comprehensive. Even if it is now perhaps unrealistic to achieve it... by mentioning it, it will at least render a “Public Option” a much more probable compromise alternative. But if you begin at 50%, then the republicans are only going to be subliminally empowered to push for a lower 25% compromise... like a stupid Conrad “co-op program”, or a crazy “10 year trigger” like what Sen. John Kerry just endorsed last week!

T.V COMMERCIALS: Just as the two thirty second “Harry and Louise” TV commercials supposedly torpedoed Hillary Clinton healthcare in 1994, you need some great thirty second TV spots to help “Obama Healthcare” in 2009, and you needed them yesterday!

It might be wise in that TV spot to mention that William McGuire, MD, the former CEO of UnitedHealth from 1992 to 2006, was paid $12 million a year and then the Securities and Exchange Commission charged him with “options backdating” and forced to resign. He was nevertheless rewarded severance pay of $1.1 billion which was the largest golden parachute in the history of corporate America. His final company stock option portfolio totaled $2.6 billion. And he was just a paper pusher! He was forced to repay $468 million and received a $7 million civil penalty. (Simply Google to verify.)

Would We the People really rather have greedy paper-pushing "for-profit" bureaucrats deciding what pre-existing conditions they can tap to disqualify the applicants? Of course not!

I just watched the 1994 Harry & Louise commercials again on YouTube, and you might do the same. I’ll leave your future 30 second TV scripts up to you, but it sure looks like you need some... and fast! Maybe this will help galvanize the 72% of Americans and congresspersons who are still demanding Universal Comprehensive Healthcare with a Public Option.

When FDR was first elected president, he wasn’t all that progressive either. It was mainly grass-roots pressure that led him in that pragmatic direction.

The Pentagon budget for 2010 is $550 billion. The combined military budgets of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran total less than $40 billion. We do not need to spend this much money on the Pentagon. You, President Obama, have proposed cutting it by 10% for 2010, and I suggest a 20% to 30% cut implemented incrementally.

Furthermore, the Pentagon is spending around $10 billion a month on the wars in Iraq and Aghanistan. After ending this bloodshed, this dollar amount alone would be enough to pay for Single-Pay Universal National Medicare, provide solvency for Social Security, the Welfare Food Stamp Program, and povide free education for all from K-12 through to and including a Ph.D. degree at any public or private college or university like they have in Norway!

Also, you need to remove the Cap on Social Security, and reimpose the Sherman Anti-trust Act like Teddy Roosevelt did and break up the numerous monolithic corporate monopolies.

Indeed, please roll back the Reagan/Bush Tax Cuts... a.s.a.p., and raise the top individual tax rate back up to what it was from 1932 until 1982 and Carter... from 70% to a high of 92%.

There is plenty of money out there, it just needs to be efficiently collected with tax laws without Cayman Island loopholes and channeled into the best programs for... We The People!